Furlough 23

Note To Self

Reminder: This is only a quick read-through of a rough copy of your book.

At times like this, we overload ourselves with expectations. And since you’re only glancing at this, your feelings will be mostly neutral with a tendency to be in love with everything you’ve written.

For two months you wrote this rough copy from so many different parts of yourself, exercising different emotions (as well as exorcising some demons). You’d promised yourself that you’d sit down and write down whatever came into your mind and that’s exactly what you did. Don’t think it’ll be all sewn up, all trimmed out, and anything resembling anything readable.

You followed a path but you also encouraged yourself to wander off of it. There are a lot of blind alleys here. A lot of opinions here, not only things that belong in the book but also those that are important to you but have no business at all being in there. And it can all be worked out.

In a few days, when you peer back into this chaos, the one thing you must not do is feel hopeless. There is nothing to fear when you have potential, and this novel has nothing but potential!

Remember what Brené Brown taught you–you are an FFT (a Fucking First Timer). Here’s what she taught you:

• Normalize it

√ I am new at this novel.

√ I don’t know what I’m doing with this novel, no matter how much I’ve written before it, and this is okay because…

√ This is exactly how I’m supposed to feel.

• Put it in Perspective

√ This feeling of helplessness is not permanent.

√ This feeling doesn’t mean I suck at this.

• Reality Check Expectations

√ This is a heavier lift than I thought, both emotionally and psychologically.

Check out Brené’s podcast ‘Unlocking Us’ where in the very first episode she explains how we’re all FFTs during this health crisis (I listened to it three times in a row. Love me some Brené!) Available wherever you listen to podcasts and stuff.

Create and Complete!

I’m going to take a day off tomorrow to celebrate the read-through. I’ll see you Friday!